


We Have Built Cathedrals Out of Spite and Splintered Bone, Of Course They Aren’t Pretty, Nothing Holy Ever Is

by Darker_Side



Series: My Dear, We are Slow Dancing in a Burning Room [4]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Devil form evolution, F/M, Graphic depictions of character injuries, Heavy Angst, Not season 5 canon compliant, Post-Season/Series 04, Purgatory, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rebirth, WHUMP FOR EVERYONE, switching POVs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28481052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darker_Side/pseuds/Darker_Side
Summary: He remembered… he remembered Chloe's pleas and protests as his brother swept her up and flew her out of damnation. He remembered the acceptance of death in that moment. He remembered a woman's voice, low and falsely comforting; a form to lean against in his final breaths.--Everything around her looked in order. All of Lucifer’s souvenirs and trinkets from around the world were present, and the smell was even the same, the air laced with sandalwood and smoke. Even so, everything felt artificial, like it was the best stage set-up in a tragic play.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Series: My Dear, We are Slow Dancing in a Burning Room [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756186
Comments: 29
Kudos: 40





	We Have Built Cathedrals Out of Spite and Splintered Bone, Of Course They Aren’t Pretty, Nothing Holy Ever Is

**Author's Note:**

> Title by Brenna Twohy, from “To The Guy in the Back of the Room Complaining About Listening to Another Rape Poem”, _Forgive Me My Salt_
> 
> \--
> 
> Please, heed the tags. Heed the archive warnings. Be safe and enjoy the torment
> 
> By the grace of Google docs on mobile, I was able to finish this chapter up! It's both rough in context and writing, so be kind in my mistakes! Haha. Please. 
> 
> Go on... Burn in Hell with me.

Little tugs, little tugs made by little claws. That was the first thing he felt since the cool breath against his ear, the even cooler fingers tickling his nape. He felt his body shift with every small tug in a handful of directions. His eyes moved dryly behind eyelids that seemed to be stuck together. The putrid stench of sulfur and irony blood rotted away in his nostrils, the scent familiar and disheartening. His mouth tasted worse, and trying to clear his arid throat brought forth the ashen, stale-blood flavor on his sandpaper tongue. 

He groaned, the only sign of life he was able to make, and he noticed that the tugs started to leave a sting behind. He turned his head to the side, muscles in his neck stiff and aching, and startled, high-pitched chattering sounded around him. The tugging stopped momentarily, only to pick back up with increased speed. There was a sort of wet sound accompanying the tugs, the sting becoming worse and worse until it felt more like tearing, sharp and bright. Each breath was a struggle, wheezing on both the inhale and exhale, unable to get a full breath with a lung closer to swiss-cheese than a functional organ. 

Coughing startled the tugging again, the chattering louder and more desperate. The cough produced a wetness in his mouth, his tongue soaking it up like a dry sponge, and the fact that the wetness was his own blood dampened the relief only slightly. As consciousness continued to creep in, like a watercolor around the dark cloud in his mind, pain came along with it. A deep, throbbing ache, only pushed into the background by the white-hot sting of sharp, incessant pain. 

There was a fluttering across his skin, soft touches by something rough and boney. He started to realize the touches and tugs belonged to a creature of some sorts, and the wet sounds were their small jaws chewing on something bloody and fleshy. 

A nauseating pit, ice-cold and alarming, engulfed his stomach when he realized the bloody flesh was his own, being torn off from the open, jagged skin of his wounds. That he was being picked-at, eaten alive. Strapped down. Unable to do anything about it. 

He forced his throat to work, releasing a hoarse, cracking shout that sounded weak to his own ears. Shrill screeching erupted from the small creatures pulling at his body, a scurrying only increased the pain as they tried to rip off more of their meal. Lucifer fought against the restraints, skin-hot metal scratching against brimstone, thick chains, pulling his limbs taught, like a condemned Vitruvian Man. 

He lifted his head, neck weak and shaking, and forced his dirt-and-sweat crusted eyes open. The sight was almost as bad as the sound. A handful of leather-skinned creatures, no bigger than a housecat, mouths bloody, flesh stuck between their spiked teeth. They all looked at his as their meal acknowledged its state, and the creatures screeched in unison as they hopped and scampered over his frame, attacking the exposed flesh and muscle left by his injuries. Lucifer yelled, unsuccessfully trying to shake the creatures off of himself.

Small claws dug into the stab wound on his side, the large blade of the Red Rider carved a space big enough for the creature’s arm. He cried out as one of them reached inside, searching for something to pull out, something soft and rich. It’s peers followed suit, and a small fight broke out over him. He was sure it was the end, he was sure that his demise would be at the tiny hands of Hell’s bottom-feeders, an almost amusing way to end the entirety of his rebellious existence. 

Although his chest burned with every breath, and his throat felt like sandpaper, screams were ripped from him like the flesh torn by little teeth. He couldn’t stop; it wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever felt, but it was a close second, and merely the thought of being devoured made it more gruesome than burning. He continued to struggle against the restraints, bruising broken skin further. More blood flooded his mouth from his efforts, more leaked from the various, violence-caused holes in his body, and the comforting feeling of going cold started to creep back into his senses. 

Lucifer was almost ready to accept it. Almost ready to just lay there, be eaten, continue to fuel a Hell that already used him for destruction. He heard before he felt his own screams start to die down, grow weaker, forfeit a claim to life, but a siren-song of a voice echoed around him, sounding drowned and beautiful. The creatures feasting off him took their last, hurried bites before running off, hissing and growling. He was thankful for the voice, too exhausted and pained to care who it belonged to. His body was shaking, uncontrollable shivers of shock, and a cool hand started to swipe away pebbles and dirt from his chest. His vision was too unfocused to get a clear image, although she looked like a dark angel above him, looking down, pale skin and dark hair, detailed features lost to him. 

“Those pesky little imps,” the woman grumbled, far too casually for someone who had to shoo-away small creatures from eating Lucifer while he still had breath. “In their defense, you do look more dead than alive.” 

He remembered… he remembered Chloe's pleas and protests as his brother swept her up and flew her out of damnation. He remembered the acceptance of death in that moment. He remembered a woman's voice, low and falsely comforting; a form to lean against in his final breaths. 

It hadn't been his time, apparently, and he wasn't sure if he had to blame his own stubbornness or being discovered by her for his outcome. Either way, a quiet demise was not in his future, no matter how much he'd rather have it than be at her mercy. Again. 

"The Horsemen are quite determined in their task, aren't they?" He heard her ask, not able to answer her. It wasn't like he knew what to say to her, and he was certain the question was rhetorical. He could feel her intense gaze over his body, the hairs on his arms, the back of his neck, raised and on alert. As they should be. Danger was, well, danger-close. "They really did a number on you."

"I got a few shots in," he retorted, coughing and wheezing. Sounding as weak and injured as he was. 

"And to think I was worried all that filthy divinity leaking out of you would destroy your wit," she bit out, and Lucifer was just beginning to see the finer details of her face, his surroundings, his own broken form if he looked down. "How silly of me. Not like it's the first time I've found you in such a state." She stepped closer, one cold hand coming to rest on his chest, right over a particularly livid bruise, sucked dark and circular by mortal mouth. Through the clearing haze in his eyes, he couldn’t tell if it was disgust or jealousy that made her eyebrows pinch together, her mouth forming a thin, hard line of red lips. “For an immortal, you do knock on death’s door quite frequently.” 

“You should have sent  _ him _ after me,” Lucifer grunted, trying to shift as the throbbing pain along his side and less serious wounds started to itch between pulsing stings. “I’m sure he’s a tad bitter from the eternity of ding-dong-ditch.”

Lilith barked out a laugh, clearly taken by surprise by Lucifer’s humor in the face of the immediate threat she provided. “Oh, I’ve missed you, my Angel,” she sighed, the smile evident in the words she spoke. “It’s been far too long since we last saw each other.” Her face was directly over his in an instant, pale tongue, elongated and pointy, snaking out from between red lips to glide over his cheek, slimy with a venomous sizzle. 

Lucifer hissed, a similar sound to the trail of saliva on his cheek, skin sizzling under the sting. ‘What do you  _ want? _ ” he ground out through clenched teeth. He was done playing games, didn’t have the energy to care to strategize. He just wanted everything to stop, and whether that meant the nothingness of nonexistence or wandering Hell alone, a broken soul again, wasn’t as important as it should have been. 

She cooed, patronizing and demeaning, brows knitted together as she stroked down his face, thumb rubbing along the curve of his cheek. “Silly boy,” she started, voice soft and chilling. “I want what I’ve wanted since I found you in this hole all those eons ago.” She motioned around them with her free hand before burying cold fingers into his hair, nails scratching at his scalp carelessly. She bent down, lips against the shell of his ear, breath puffing out like an invisible icy mist. “I want what you can do, what you can  _ give _ me in this cesspool.”

Lilith grabbed his jaw, nails biting into his skin, forcing him to look up at her. He didn’t see much, not much more than eternal damnation at the hands of a demoness long scorned. All the pieces that made her human had been chewed-up and swallowed in the bowels of Hell, leaving nothing by a carcass of spite and torment. She kept her beauty, but her insides were rotten, acrid, had to be burning her up like her saliva on his cheek. Melting flesh and organ, without means for death, boiling away in an unmarred bag. 

It would be sad if he hadn’t lost all empathy for Hell’s creations a million lifetimes ago. 

“I know what you need,” she whispered, his mind pulled from a black void of thought by her soft tone and false words. “I’ll take care of you, just like last time.” Her hands stroked down his body, a violation he never knew he could feel under such beauty, but it was there. Her mind, just as cooked and altered as her insides, was a horrifying vessel to be in the center of. When she had found him, after the Fall, she had cornered him into a false sense of security, caring for him as he healed, both mind and body, from such merciless abandon. 

Truth be told, he had owed her a lot for that, and he was more than willing to provide, and he did. He built her empires in Hell, he demanded control from groups of unruly, evil spawn, fought wars against the powers that be, more ancient than anything he could ever pretend to know. 

The face and voice of power and destruction, a shield to stand behind until obedience had been wrought. 

But she was greedy, and she wanted everyone to suffer the way she had been forced to. Lucifer wasn’t against making those that deserved it suffer, but he had been trying to exist without the suffering, without the constant pain, and she wasn’t conducive to that plan. She was born from torment and persecution, and Hell brought out the worst in a nature like that. 

“It’s never going to  _ be _ like the last time, Lilith,” he rasped, throat dry and achy, sore from overuse and trauma. 

Hurt flashed over her viscously pretty features, a slight twitch on her brow, eyes growing wet at the corners, before she looked more amused than insulted. “You talk as if I need your consent.” She tilted her head, no hint of a grin on her face, no hint of anything. She was special in that way, in her ability to feel absolutely nothing at all in a moment's notice. 

Eons of being made to feel inadequate and unworthy could do that to a person. 

Lucifer would know.

She didn’t wait very long for him to add anything to the conversation. It was clear that his opinion mattered very little. “I know how to hurt this body beyond measure, how to make it feel better than anything else.” He felt her cool breath fan over his face, her even colder hands slide over his chest, down and down, until her claw-like nails dug into his sides, one hand going  _ in _ , scraping exposed muscle and bone. 

Lucifer yelped, but the sound was cut off when she pressed her mouth to his, her tongue sinking down into the well of his mouth, even as he tried to bite it off with his teeth. She did nothing more but moan and laugh as his teeth sank into acrid muscle, her blood burning the soft inside of his mouth like sulfuric acid. She pulled back, black collected into the corners of her mouth, and he knew it was the cause of the putric steam rising from his lips.

“I know how to sink my claws into your tragic, little mind and bend you to my will. No, I don’t  _ need _ your compliance, Samael. I just need all that divine wrath in you.” 

“Don’t call me that,” he mumbled around the fresh pain on his tongue. He tried to spit it out, but his mouth was far too dry; there was nothing to initiate expelling the vile fluid. It burned, constant, a reminder of his predicament. The certainty of it. 

“Why not?” she teased, the hand in the wound on his side moving around, like it was searching for his heart, or just his lungs to squeeze the remaining fight out of him. “My broken angel, with so many names.” Her words tapered off, much like the incessant digging into his chest cavity. He was left with a brief relief of nothingness before she was suddenly on top of him, straddling him, with nothing between their bodies. 

He hadn’t noticed it before, whether or not she had been clothed, and that should have been all the indication he needed to know how poor his condition was. Lilith was beautiful, one would have to be blind or a fool to say otherwise. She just wasn’t earthly in her beauty; it was more ethereal in a haunting sort of way. She had been in Hell longer than Lucifer had, and he only knew her as what Hell had made her. He hadn’t known what she looked like in the Garden, but he didn’t need to. His burned, broken mind had found her stunning when everything else around him was as foul and grotesque as himself. 

In Hell, her skin was pallor, more white-grey than anything lively, her hair long and black. Her lips and nipples, even the folds of skin between her legs, were a darker shade of grey, like smudged charcoal. Like they’d leave marks in that color on his skin. It felt the perfect metaphor, to be touched by another so soon after touching Chloe with such viscous passion as to express their form of love. He felt marred by her, already, just with her naked form on top of his equally bare one. He felt the inhuman cold of her flesh, the cold wetness hovering over his flaccid cock, the heated gaze that shouldn’t come from anything so full of icy loathing. 

“What name should I call you now?” she whispered, leaning down, hands planted on the stone on either side of his head. He didn’t turn, not even when the tip of her nose brushed his, when her lips ghosted over the chapped, broken skin of his mouth. He never backed-down, never folded, never cowered away. Not even under the scrutiny of the Almighty. “Lucifer? Devil? The Fallen One, Lightbearer? Which one of your many monikers?” 

“I don’t give a  _ fuck _ ,” he bit out, staring up at her, unblinking. She laughed at that, head tilting back, sounding like a gothic chime made from broken glass and bone. It was beautiful in its fatality. 

A hand came to rest on the side of his face, the other disappearing between their bodies, further down than he could see in his position. A cool hand wrapped around the base of his uninterested cock. He wanted to hiss, but he wouldn’t afford her the pleasure of a reaction. Not like that. Not when he could still taste Chloe around the blood in his mouth, around the acid from Lilith’s tongue. 

“I can’t wait to put a leash on that strong will of yours,” she started, a wicked smile on her dark mouth, blood-stained and bitten. “I can’t wait to muzzle that pretty face and march you up to Heaven to claim what is  _ mine _ .” 

“I’m not your dog, Lilith. Not any more.” He swallowed around the lump of his tongue, biting back the whimper that wanted to escape. He wouldn’t give her that, either; not the satisfaction of knowing she was taking anything from him.

She ignored his words. It was clear she knew something he didn’t, like she knew he would do just that. He tried to not let the icy chill from that realization make him shudder, but it was hard when an equally cold hand was on his cheek, cooling heating skin. It should have soothed the pain, but all it did was make the ache worse.

“What will your human think of you, then, hm?” she mocked, hand starting to stroke him with the gliding ease of blood over soft length. She squeezed and kneaded the flesh like she could coax his remaining blood to fill the vessels, gain rigidity. It would work, of course it would, the familiarity of her touch from times long begotten, better left to die in the recesses of his damaged mind. His body betrayed him with its inability to distinguish pleasurable torment from actual torture, and the first pulse of hardness made him feel sick.

“She’s out of your reach,” he grunted, pulling on his restraints, chains clinking against ragged stone, keeping him spread-out and at her mercy. 

“You think Michael actually took her back to Earth?” The sheer shock of her certainty, her amusement at the thought, was enough to make him stop, his breath catching in his chest. His jaw clenched and his eyes regained their fire, burning bright and hot in his skull, reflecting warm light off Lilith’s ashen cheeks. She moaned, soft and relieved, like seeing his rage aroused her more than anything else, more than the poor prospect of an erection in her hand.

“What if I told you I know where he took her, what he’s  _ doing?”  _ Her hips rocked over him, her cunt spreading chilled fluid over his length, preparing it for clammy crypt. 

“Lilith, what did you do?” he asked, voice tight and worried. His hands clenched, and he was desperately vulnerable, painfully aware of his lack of control. The hard, dead truth was that he wasn’t going anywhere, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to change it. 

“He watched the two of you,” she stared, a sickening narrative that he wanted to ignore, but knew he couldn’t. Lilith didn’t have the care to play with half-truths. Everything she did and said was to cause as much pain, as much torment, as possible. It was a harsh but sobering fact. There was no need to guess. “It was gloriously perverse; innocent Michael, learning what breeding looks like from the young Rebel. He was  _ intrigued _ , to say the least.” 

“What did you say?!” Lucifer pleaded, and he felt no shame for it, not when Chloe was concerned, not when she was out of his own grasp and away from any selfish protection he could offer. 

She smiled, wicked, like she had sentenced some sort of justice for her situation. “I simply told him that he had the same parts. I could  _ see _ it, hard and twitching under all that disgustingly righteous armor and cloth.” With that, she sank down onto his half-hard cock, an exaggerated moan rumbling out of her throat. There was nothing for Lucifer to feel, nothing to ease the raging anxiety and anger boiling inside of him. Lilith either didn’t care or was blind to his disgust, even after he heaved and a dribble of blood and bile slid out of the corners of his mouth and down his cheeks. There was nothing else in his stomach to retch up, only more blood that was slowly killing him, anyway. 

“Where did they go? Tell me, where did they go?” He asked like he was pleading to himself, trying to reason with his own lack of logic. Like he didn’t want to consider the possibilities; there were just too many to think about when he was near death and stretched out beneath a vile temptress and her undying search for revenge. 

“To a place where even prying, omnipresent eyes can’t see.” she whispered, riding him, grinding down so he couldn’t slip out, so his cock couldn’t shrivel away and escape her. 

His blood, what was left, ran cold, even colder than the claws of death could make it. His head started shaking, like denial could stop the inevitable, even though he knew all too well the helplessness of  _ faith _ was like. Her hands grasped the sides of his face, holding him steady, keeping his face close to hers as she pressed her forehead to his, green eyes set ablaze by his own. 

“I own purgatory, Lucifer. That’s my wasteland to play with, and I gave him special access for such  _ special _ cargo. A place where your Father can’t see the sin your brother’s so eager to commit.” 

He pulled at his restraints, arms and legs trying to kick free from the indestructible chains. He could feel his body warming, nothing with life, but with his notorious wrath, his un-godly gift bestowed upon him by the very place he was contained.

“Leave her out of this, Lilith!” he growled, thrashing around as much he could, ignoring the pang of injury as he did so. It was fruitless, and Lilith was getting too much satisfaction from his pathetic attempt at escape. “I’ll do what you want! I’ll bring Hell to Earth for you, just get her away from him.  _ Please.” _ There it was. His begging, and he hated it, but he loved Chloe more, and that realization hit him hard on his strained muscle of a heart. 

“I don’t want that, Lucifer!” she screamed, halting her movements on him.The grip on his face turned painful, claws digging into broken skin, getting his attention. “I want suffering, I want vengeance. I don’t need a vacation home.” She started riding him recklessly then, and he had almost forgotten she had forced him inside of herself. The concern for Chloe far outweighed the nature of his situation. 

“Then tell me what you want!” he shouted, eyes burning brighter, heat emanating off of them like coals in a pit. 

“I want to bring Hell to the Silver City! I want to watch all of those pious creatures burn like I was forced to! I want to watch everything crumble in a blaze of fire and ash, and you’re going to give that to me!” 

“I won’t do  _ anything _ until she is safe, Lilith. Do you hear me?”

“Oh, pretty boy,” she cooed, rolling her hips over him, taking pleasure from his soft cock and bloody skin, her nails still carving marks into his face. “You’ve been out for a while, I’m sure whatever Michael had planned has already happened.” 

“No. No, no, no,” Lucifer whispered to himself, eyes slamming shut as his body was jolted with every swivel Lilith made with her pelvis. 

“Do you think your brother remembered how frail mortals are?” she asked, teasing, rhetorical. She leaned down, licked at his ear before speaking softly into the shell, voice cold and wet; it would have been chillingly intoxicating if he wasn’t so jaded to her methods.“Do you think he knows his celestial  _ cock _ could kill her? Do you think she fought back? We all know how Michael loves a good fight…” 

“Stop,” he ordered quietly, willing his mind to cease the horrible images flashing behind his eyelids; visions of Michael and Chloe, him on top of her, rutting, of her screaming for Lucifer to help her, of Michael laughing as he took his pound of flesh. 

Lilith was laughing then, almost like she could see the horrific images in his mind. For all he knew, she probably could; he never felt the need to understand all of what Hell had turned her into, so far from mortal it was terrifying. 

“Do you think she cried out to you?” she sneered, her motions becoming erratic. She was getting off on it all. 

“Shut up,” he spat, turning his face away from her, even as her nails scorched lines across his face. He barely registered the rumbling beneath him. It was coming from the ground, the core, and if Lilith could feel it, she made no notice. 

She bent down lower, below his ear, licked a searing line on his neck before her cool lips returned to his temple. “Or do you think she was calling out  _ his _ name before he was finished?” 

The chains creaked as he pulled on them, a sense of strength was returning to his body, he could feel it coursing through him, burning at the wounds, healing them in flammable damnation. He was shaking, the rumbling was intensifying and couldn’t be ignored. The rocky walls were crumbling around the pit they were in. It looked like the crater they were in was widening, allowing a larger birth for something. 

Lilith stopped riding him, long enough for his cock to slip out of her, cold and limp, and she watched as the landscape around them started to fall, to break and crack at newly-formed seams. “What’s happening?” Her voice was quiet, and it was the first time Lucifer had ever witnessed her scared. 

_ “Lightbearer,” _ the voices hissed, the same ones that sounded throughout all of Hell when he and Chloe had first landed in the realm. It was many, indiscernible the amount, but they sounded ancient and all-knowing. He knew it was  _ them _ , the powers that be. The true Rulers of the Infernal Pit. The Lords to his Prince of Darkness. 

Lilith looked down at him, eyes wide as they addressed him. She knew about them, of course, every higher entity residing in Hell knew of their existence. Very few had ever experienced them, had ever been given any proof other than spontaneous combustion. In a different time, Lucifer had always found that hilariously ironic. 

_ “Accept the flame from this womb,”  _ the voices continued to hiss, to whisper their invisible orders, their gospel of death.  _ “Be reborn again!”  _ They didn’t make sense, weren’t very clear in their scripture, but Lucifer expected nothing less of deities such as them. He knew that from even the Holy One. 

“What are you doing?!” she shouted, raising up on her knees to try and look around. Lucifer felt the flames before they started, he felt them blooming, catching the tinder of his doomed soul, before they burst out and, somehow, set flame to the stones around them, around the crater. It was then that their words clicked, The womb, the flame, rebirth. 

He started laughing, his strength increasing by the second, and he knew he could break free from the chains, but he had something he had to do first, before he was made out. The laughs turned hysterical, his lungs no longer burning from lack of capacity, his body healing up and sewing itself together, leaving scars that lingered like a warning to any adversary. 

“You brought me  _ here?” _ he asked through the fit of chuckles the new power was allowing him to have. “You brought me to where I landed after my Fall, to where I was  _ made _ The Devil?” He continued to laugh, up until she tried to move away, to jump off his makeshift stretcher of brimstone. He broke free of the shackles then, wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed, pulling her down so she hovered over his face. So she could watch. 

The fire that surrounded them exploded, gaining in size and intensity, and he could feel the heat as the flames licked around the slab they were on. Lilith tried to pry herself free, to no avail. He was strong, stronger than before, and not even her claws and acidic saliva could harm him. 

“You’re going to die,” he stated flatly, smirking up at her while his eyes burned brighter than ever, flames flicking up, towards her face, threatening to singe. 

“Let me go!” she pleaded, hate still tainting her words. It was impossible for her to speak with anything else in her intent. She was full of hate and scorn; it was all she had in a land filled with her unloved, evil children. 

“I’m going to kill you,” he whispered, nothing but delight and justice leaking from his deepened voice. The flames had started working their way up the slab, inching closer to their bodies, but all Lucifer felt was warmth, power, evolution. “And when you’re dead, I'm going to drag your wretched soul to your Wonderland of Sorrow, where you won’t even have your rage to keep you company.” 

Lilith screamed as the inferno started feasting on her dead flesh, melting away the grey, leaving her black, rotten insides exposed. The fire engulfed them, and Lucifer remained untouched by pain; his skin burning away to the familiar red, marred flesh of his Devil form. It was different, bigger, more horrifying. It fit. Spikes of bone poked through his forearms, his shoulders, and he laughed through the change, the transformation of pure, infernal devastation. He laughed through it, even as Lilith screamed and moaned as inhuman as she had become. 

_ “Punish, Lightbearer! Punish!”  _ The voices shouted, sounding exalted, sounding proud.

He had no intention of ignoring their words.

He crushed the melting throat in his hands, and when Lilith’s body was no longer capable of holding itself together, her black soul appeared. Whatever Angel was left in him allowed him to grab it, as well. 

Souls were interesting in their form. They held the shape of their body, but they floated like liquid in the air, expressions looked like ink on wet paper, smudging in on themselves. They could still scream, and Lilith’s soul did, even as he broke the shackles on his ankles, even as he stood up in his new form, completely healed, and stronger than he’d ever been. The flames remained, only dying down to make way for him, and he released his wings. He was, surprisingly, pleased to see they remained white and feathered. They gave him a dichotomy that epitomized him to his very core.

He looked up, ignoring the writhing soul in his hands, left his flaming eyes open as he acknowledged the sky above. He could feel the Ancient Ones’ power eminitating through him. It was a gift, for what, he wasn’t certain. They had always liked him, had enjoyed having something Holy to bestow their damnation on. If it wasn’t for Chloe, he would say they were more kind than his own Father, but he gave him Chloe. He’d never admit the gratitude he felt for that. Not to Him. 

“I won’t waste it,” he said, in appreciation, and Hell rumbled around him in acceptance. 

Lucifer jumped up, and as he soared through the air, his wings caught wind, and he stared right at Lilith’s soul as he flew out through the realms, swirling in the dark matter of space and time. He knew the way to Purgatory, and he held the screaming key in his hands. 

\---

Her eyes were closed, hand been from the moment giant arms wrapped around her. Arms that Lucifer had begged to take her away. Michael hadn’t said a word, but even in Chloe’s limited experience in changing realms, their flight was taking longer than her and Lucifer’s exorcism to Hell had. Whether the method of travel made the difference, she wasn’t sure. 

The thunderous sound of Michael’s wings were almost drowned-out by the noise of traveling through the realms. It was a rushing, more of water than air, and her skin went from hot to cold in seconds. Even through her eyelids, she could see a kaleidoscopic change of color, and then nothing but blackness when everything fell silent. 

When she cracked her eyes open, she was met with the dim, warm light of Lucifer’s penthouse. She hadn’t heard them enter through the sliding-glass door in the back, and they certaintly hadn’t entered through the club and come up the elevator. Even so, the flood of relief was enough to make her knees buckle when her Angel chauffeur set her down on the ground, not entirely gently. It was strange, she thought, Michael seemed right at home in Lucifer’s penthouse, like he had been there before. Far be it from her to assume he hadn’t, but she was pretty sure she would have seen a giant Thor look-alike walking about Lux. 

Chloe was walking over to the plush leather couch, running her hand along the cool, supple material, when a booming voice stopped her movements. “I trust this is an adequate setting?”

She turned around to face the Archangel, who was still standing by the glass door to the balcony. He was captivating, to say the least, but even his ethereal nature couldn’t hide the complete lack of light coming from behind the glass. The night time glow of Los Angeles was not there, and while total power-grid outages were relatively common, it was never that dark. 

Chloe nodded, wearily, and she found the slight up-tick at the corner of Michael’s mouth more alarming than comforting. He was huge, a towering pillar of golden light and armor, and she felt none of the divine tranquility she assumed she should feel from a Heavenly being. If anything, she felt unease, almost as much as she had felt in Hell. But Lucifer had been in Hell, with her, and he made her feel more comfortable there than she was feeling with his brother. 

Everything around her looked in order. All of Lucifer’s souvenirs and trinkets from around the world were present, and the smell was even the same, the air laced with sandalwood and smoke. Even so, everything felt artificial, like it was the best stage set-up in a tragic play.

“Will you go get him now?” she asked, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, trying to keep her voice from rising an octave. Her ankle was throbbing again, the bite from the lycanic beast making itself aware with the amount of dread in the air. 

Michael had the audacity to look offended by her question. “No.” 

She swallowed, considering her next words. “Why not?” A fresh wave of distress washed over her, and the more and more she looked around at the familiar setting, she realized that there was something wrong with where they were. They were in Lucifer’s penthouse, but they weren’t in L.A., that much was certain. “He’s hurt. He needs help.” 

He took a step towards her, and even with the vast distance between them, Chloe felt the urge to take a step back. Nothing good ever came from slow, deliberate steps. “I helped him when I took you out of there,” he noted, moving forward again. She did step back, then, and he noticed, tilting his head in thought. “Lucifer’s situation is not of my concern.” 

“He told you to take me home.” Chloe rolled her shoulders back, puffed out her chest, refusing to be intimidated by the celestial in front of her. Her mind betrayed what her body was showing, but luckily Michael couldn’t read her thoughts, or so she hoped. “ _ This, _ ” she said, motioning around them with a single finger. “Isn’t home.” 

“I guess my brother doesn’t just call you  _ Detective _ for no reason,” he teased, no sincerity reaching his eyes. He took his spear and leaned it against a corner in the wall. The weapon was all gold and gleaming iron, or steel, or whatever divine material Angels fit into their peacebringers. Leaving the weapon aside was not comforting, because it reminded her of his significant advantage without it. Why come at easy game with a weapon if you can take them down like an ant under your finger?

“Where are we?” she asked him, stepping further into the false penthouse as Michael started to move forward, closing the distance. 

“I’ve watched how you work with him,” the Angel went on, ignoring her question, large hands at his sides, uncurled, at the ready. “I’ve seen what you  _ do _ with him.” His eyes were light, but something behind them darkened, ethereal, entirely inhuman in any way. 

“Tell me where we are,” she demanded, although her voice was soft. Michael had the air about him that made her reason he had no intention of answering her questions. He was talking, doing the talking, and she was there to… listen and accept. 

He tsked at her, barely looking disappointed. He continued to close the distance, and Chloe hadn’t realized she had been walking backwards, turning to keep the lumbering Angel in her sights, and then the backs of her knees hit the couch, and she was sitting, staring even further up. Her hands gripped the couch, sore knuckles clenching on soft leather for purchase. Fear was coursing through her and she swore that Michael could feel it, seemed to revel in it, like he could control it. 

He came to a stop in front of her and knelt down, closing her into her position. Nowhere to move but through him, and that was an almost laughable concept. “Perhaps it’s obvious,” he offered, tone deceptively civil as he stared her down. It was clear he had no intention of letting her go anywhere. Not until he wanted it. “My experience with humans is rather limited, and I’ve never thought anything of it.” 

She schooled her expressions, keeping them blank, even as he eyed her, gaze lowering and lingering on her mouth, her neck, before returning to face. Her jaw clenched, the unease growing, heart rate increasing, not quite fight-or-flight, but it was close. The sad reality was that neither was an option. Not with an Angel. Not when she was somewhere, and her only chance of returning home was glaring at her like an exotic insect he had pinned to a board, ready to dissect and find out what lay beneath. 

“Not until I watched you and my brother in that infernal pit.” Realization struck her then. She knew he wasn’t talking about the fighting, the fight for survival against the creatures of Hell. He was talking about the cave, and whether he watched from afar or if he had the ability to visualize all happenings in any realm made no difference. It was clear in his eyes, the way his lips were set into a smirk, that he was talking about what they did in the cave. What they confessed in flesh and blood. 

Her silence didn’t seem to bother him, nor hinder his running thoughts on the matter. If anything, he was comforted by her silence. No need to quiet a restless animal, no need to interrupt his thoughts or plans. Her silence was efficient for him, and it did nothing but make the lack of ambient noise deafening in her ears. 

“Seeing that got me curious.” He placed a hand on her knee, gingerly, like he was afraid that some of her mortality would seep into his skin if he did. His palm covered the expanse of the joint, fingers wrapping around skin and bone, fingers nearly touching on the other side. “So tell me, Chloe Decker, Miracle Child, what does my brother’s existence mean to you? What is it worth?” 

“ _ What? _ ” she asked, voice quiet and breathy in a whisper. Michael’s other hand circled the corresponding knee; he was almost between her legs, no more than a foot of distance between them, and the urge to slam her legs shut was stronger than anything she’d ever felt. 

“What does my insidious brother’s life  _ mean _ to you?

“Everything.” she said it with conviction it even surprised herself. It was the truth. Lucifer meant everything to her. He was a piece to complete her, just as much as she was to him, and the pieces were still tacky, not cemented, in risk of breaking off. 

“‘Everything’”, he repeated back, softly, nodding his head as if he was contemplating exactly what she meant, as if it wasn’t obvious. “And if I said I could ensure his unfortunate existence continues… what would you do for that?” 

If there was any doubt in her mind about Michael’s intentions with his dramatic display of familiar territory, they were gone in that instant. In that one question. Her legs were trembling, and he cursed her traitorous body for giving the Angel the satisfaction of feeling her nerves. 

He smiled then, light and amused. He knew he had her. “I’m sure you’d entertain my curiosities for that.” 

She didn’t need to answer, and he sure as hell didn’t seem to need one from her. He knew the answer, regardless of her cooperation. 

Michael’s touch felt like destruction and the cure. He was dangling the glue to the puzzle pieces of her soul right off his holy fingers. He squeezed her knees, making her jump, grabbing her attention, and her eyes bored into his with anxious certainty. 

“Hm, Chloe?” he interjected her thoughts, hands on her knees rubbing falsely gentle circles into her muscles. “Is my brother worth that much to you?” Stinging, angry tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision, and Michael’s face morphed into a blob of gold and blue, exposing his horrific nature beneath righteous features. 

He stood up in a single, smooth motion, grabbing Chloe’s wrists and yanking her up from her seat. He didn’t hold back, his grip strong and painful on her joints, the tendons and sinew shifting beneath his palms and fingers. She grunted and pulled out of reflex, but it did nothing against his strength. Michael maneuvered both wrists into one of his hands so the other could reach and pull her hair back, arching her neck, exposing the marks and bruises Lucifer had left in a fit of desperate passion. 

He seemed to study them, brows pulled together, considering the methods used to inflict such visual evidence of carnal action. Her breath was shaky and light, her head dizzy with the urge to flee, but she had felt what Lucifer could do to keep her in place, spear her on his cock, taking from her what she was offering with just as much force. She knew struggle would do nothing but stoke Michael’s ego, give him something to laugh at as he raptured. 

Being so close, she could pick up the unique notes of scent that were the opposite of Lucifer’s. Where Lucifer smelled oaky and warm, Michael smelled earthy and sterile. She wondered if that was what holiness smelled like, clean and natural. Untainted. She couldn’t imagine Lucifer smelling like that, so pure and clinical. Perhaps Falling changed his scent, or perhaps Lucifer had always been destined to radiate smoke and sin. 

Michael’s hand lowered to her waist, where he pushed her jacket out of the way and lifted her dirty shirt to expose her skin. Ash and blood dusted her flesh, small bruises adorned the crown of her hip, scratches and claw marks left by a pretty face with monstrous hands. He placed his fingers over the bruises, fitting each digit where Lucifer’s hands had marked her as his. 

He hummed to himself, understanding settling into his mind as his eyes moved back up to Chloe’s. “So this is what love is to humans? Bite marks and bruised skin?” The judgement was clear, but even his collected demeanor couldn’t hide the question in his tone. 

“Lucifer isn’t human,” she bit out, not ashamed of the evidence of her lover’s being, worn as accessories on her skin. 

"He seems disillusioned by that fact, doesn't he," Michael released her wrists and roughly tugged her jackets over her shoulders, off her arms, tossing the article aside. Chloe's weak grunts of protest were ignored. "I think he envies your kind. Wishes to be like you so much that he abandons his responsibilities to corrupt an inferior species to his ideals."

His eyes continued to wander across the newly exposed skin on her arms, decorated with more bruised and scrapes from Hell and its wayward Prince, no longer chained to the throne, but the shackles still clung like heavy weights pulling him towards his ashen prison. 

"He forgets he wasn't made for repentance," the archangel went on, moving her body and clothes around like a child would do tinkering with a toy. "He wasn't made to sin and be forgiven. He was made for greatness, to be an example. An angel with the power to light the darkness, and he threw that all away for the illusion of free will and warm body to put his cock in." Michael looked smug, his piousness glowing on arrogant features, delusions of grandeur in divine flesh. 

"There's nothing wrong in wanting a choice."

"So tell me Chloe Decker, The Miracle, is it a sin to use something that's been destined for tragedy since the moment of her conception?" She could hear the impatience in the curtness of his tone, and it wasn’t about the time; it was impatience over sympathizing with his rebel brother. “Is it a sin to take from a creature egregiously tainted by evil?” 

“Lucifer isn’t -” 

“Don’t,” Michael stopped her, raising a single finger into the air, halting her words. She saw it there, the anger that seemed so carefully controlled under his golden exterior, the anger flashing in blue eyes like glaciers breaking. “Think you understand the complexities of my world. There's much more to his Fall than you know."

"I'm sure that goes both ways," she retorted, features cold and bitter."

"What he's told you doesn't even begin to scratch the surface." Michael turned her around and shoved her into the couch, knees landing on the cushions, hands and chest pressed against the padded material along the back. It was almost comfortable, until his hands grasped the sides of her jeans and forced the material down.

The stretchy denim sat snug around her knees, and she was grateful for the cheaper fabric, as it held under the forceful position, not ripping from the angel's strength. Rough hands gripped her hips, molding to more bruises and marks, matching them up, getting a feel for how Lucifer had held onto her while they took their pounds of flesh, hiding in a cave from monsters and soldiers alike. 

Suddenly, a hand was between her legs, fingers moving and feeling around the folds of skin and the more delicate flesh they protected. She wanted to vomit, but she refused to show him any more weakness, not if she could control it. She swallowed the acrid bike down, blinking back angry tears that threatened to fall like beacons of innocence lost. 

The friction of careless fingers was near painful without arousal to glide the way. It was like her body had absorbed any remaining wetness from Lucifer's touch, keeping it in her and untainted by righteous hands. 

What Lucifer could to do her was his alone, his to hold, and Michael wouldn't get a drop of it. 

"So  _ this _ is what causes the downfall of so many men," Michael muttered more to himself than to her. He continued to fumble around with her most delicate parts as tremors rattled her tense muscles. "What's so special about this?"

Chloe closed her eyes, hips instinctively trying to pull away from the unwanted touch. She thought of Lucifer, of how certain he had seemed that his brother could keep her safe. She couldn't fault a desperate decision, and it only made her heart clench more thinking of how broken he had been. How destroyed he had looked in accepting his own defeat.

She only hoped giving herself to the angel behind her would save the Devil she loved, even if he could never look at her again. She probably wouldn't look in a mirror for the rest of her life. 

She flinched when the tip of Michael's finger caught the edge of thin skin at her entrance. His hum of curiosity was far from comforting, and her stomach flipped when the pad barely dipped inside, nothing slick to ease further entry. 

All movement stopped behind her, making her freeze, and she fought the urge to look over her shoulder, praying he changed his mind, praying he lost interest. 

A rustling of leathery fabric, the clinking of metal, and then the hot, velvety feel of something smooth and hard pressed against the skin where his hand had been, scorching betrayal and shame into flesh. 

Chloe had lived enough years, been with enough men, to know exactly what it was. She whimpered, biting her tongue to shut herself up. 

There was no skill or experience with how Michael was rubbing the fat head of his cock against her sex. It felt awkward, much like it had been when she lost her virginity with a guy from U.S. Government in high school. 

No experience, no knowledge of the act. So naive to how a cock went inside a woman. 

A lapse of self-preservation allowed bubbling laughter to escape her chest as he struggled to understand how two bodies fit together in carnal sin. The grip on her hip tightened as Michael growled in anger behind her, but she couldn't stop laughing, even as fearful tears welled in her eyes. 

The Archangel adjusted his hips behind her, and with a brutal, violent thrust, he slammed into her. The minute wetness that was natural in her anatomy and the immortal strength of his body allowed the painful intrusion. She clasped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming, tears rolling hot and heavy down her cheeks. 

The thrusts were clumsy and erratic, and as he grunted, all she could do was close her eyes and repeatedly cry  _ I'm sorry _ in her head, hoping it would fall to ears that she feared couldn't hear anymore. 

***

It was over quickly, and when he pulled out, panting harshly, she felt the trickle of cum between her thighs. When she looked down, she saw red and milky white. 

"Now go get him," she ground out, words as bitter as she could get them. She wanted to wipe away the evidence of Michael's assault, but she didn't want it on her hands. Not hands she hoped to touch Lucifer with again. Wincing, she pushed herself off the couch and pulled up her pants, covering the shane and disgust. 

She felt dirtier then than she had felt being covered in blood and the ash of burning souls. 

She felt her soul was next to fall down over Hell like morbid snow, fresh and plentiful. 

"He's never leaving that place, Chloe Decker," was Michael's reply, and even though she never wanted to lay eyes on him again, the rush of anger forced her gaze to his golden superiority. 

"We had a  _ deal! _ " she yelled, fists balled at her sides, not like she could do anything other than make an itch on his skin. 

"I'm not my brother," he corrected, far too calmly. "I make no deals." 

She felt dizzy. Rage and fear coursing through her like a runaway train. The telltale signs of a panic attack squeezed at her lungs, her chest. She swayed, and not wanting to show weakness was the farthest from her mind. 

Michael sighed, irritated, as he stalked over to where his spear was leaning in the corner of the mirage penthouse. "I will go see if his blasphemous existence still plagues this universe, but first I have to take you somewhere else." 

Nervous hope fluttered in her heart, but she wouldn't be hopeful. She couldn't. Not when everything didn't make sense. Not when Hell seemed more merciful and just then Heaven and it's angels. 

"This place isn't sustainable for mortal life." He reached out a hand as if the past minutes hadn't occurred. As if he hadn't assaulted her body and soul in the name of curiosity and wonder. It was almost laughable that Michael's morals allowed rape and not homicide. 

What she saw before her, in the outstretched hand of righteous horror, was her only salvation. Her only chance at ever seeing Trixie again. Her only chance of ever seeing Lucifer again. 

Chloe walked over on unsteady legs, allowed the angle to wrap his arm around her waist, and fly off with her through another realm. 

She left her eyes open, and the brightness was blinding.

The sense of peace was arresting. 

**Author's Note:**

> Now, this will definitely be the last post for a while. Moving, and all that comes with it, sucks. This cross-country drive might be my downfall.  
> I'm kidding... Hopefully. 
> 
> Come yell at me down below... I probably deserve it after this one 😉
> 
> Until next time  
> 😈


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